The modern meaning of the word puritan helps sustain in conventional thought the elements that characterize the seventeenth-century Puritans as straitlaced, harsh, cold, and unfeeling. There is little doubt that Puritan doctrine was austere and that Puritan rejection of error was unyielding, but Puritan men and women enjoyed the company of others and welcomed pleasure even while they condemned excess. Students need to know them better, and several lectures may beneficially be employed to introduce a group whose influence on subsequent generations in America was far greater than their numbers would suggest. Alan Simpson, Puritanism in Old and New England (1955), and Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness (1956), will provide an excellent introduction.

Puritan thought concerning predestination, the doctrine of the elect, and the nature of historical causation deserves to be better understood. Intolerance toward Quakers and others guilty of religious "error" should be considered as an aspect of religious commitment. The Half-Way Covenant reveals the triumph of pragmatism over doctrine. Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939), is superb intellectual history.

The importance of an ordered and godly family was a matter of great emphasis, and the Massachusetts family needed additional strength in the Wilderness. In addition to the excellent suggestions in the chapter bibliography see Daniel Blake Smith, "The Study of the Family in Early America: Trends, Problems, and Prospects," William and Mary Quarterly, third series, 39 (January 1982): 3-28.

Education was a matter of such importance that Harvard College and a printing press were established within the first decade of settlement, and the Old Deluder Satan law was created in the second. Education's emphasis on piety, civility, and learning will form the basis for a stimulating lecture, especially if comparisons are made with contemporary educational emphases. Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607-1783 (1970), is excellent. See also Samuel Eliot Morison, The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England (1956; published as The Puritan Pronaos in 1935).

Another biographical lecture may be useful. John Winthrop, through his leadership of Massachusetts Bay, helped establish a foothold and a tradition that have become part of the national myth. See Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (1962), and Lee Schweninger, John Winthrop (1989).

The nature and history of dissenters, especially Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, will underscore the importance of mind in the Puritan world. Students will profit from an opportunity to consider the clash of ideas in a society that held ideas to be matters of very great moment. The case of Anne Hutchinson has an additional element that ought not to be ignored. A woman of deep understanding, powerful intellect, and assertive character, she was a threat to a male-dominated society. Can students see parallels with other strong women at other times and places? See Philip F. Gura, A Glimpse of Sion's Glory: Puritan Radicalism in New England, 1620-1660 (1984). See also Edmund S. Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and the State (1967), and Amy S. Lang, Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent in the Literature of New England (1987).

The hesitant and uncertain development of chattel slavery deserves a closer look. Students often see slavery rather simplistically. They may fail to recognize until it is pointed out that there are varying degrees of unfreedom that have characterized human social relations, as, for example, Russian serfs and English indentured servants. In considering the development of slavery in the Chesapeake region in the seventeenth century, you may wish to raise this question for student contemplation: Did slavery precede or follow antiblack racism? See David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966); Winthrop D. Jordan, The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States (1974); and Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (1975).

Bacon's Rebellion provides opportunity for a lecture focusing on dramatic events, greed, disloyalty, and confusion. Such a dramatic lecture will reveal historical reality and provide students with a stimulating hour. See Wilcombe E. Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel: A History of Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia (1957).